Microsoft's ads doing damage to Apple: study - Page 2

Soap powder advertising works too, brand x washes whiter. Much is down to what
is fresh in the memory, most recent. Repeating stuff works too, most important.

The survey was conducted by a marketing industry company, reported by an
advertising mag and and the conclusion drawn is that marketing/advertising works.
Does that pass the bullshit test?

Can we see the other metrics on the tabs in the graph image?

BrandIndex (YouGov) is an international internet-based market research firm so it's
fair to suggest that the results mirror internet users perceptions rather than general
public although no doubt YouGov will say weighting accounts for such things.

They pay people for filling in surveys, would such people buy Macs anyway?
Hardly matters really, the survey is about perception :-)

What a stupid survey. Do they really think that only some ads have such an impact? What about the reality?

Apple hasn't really had some big new products in the last time and to be fair the rumored new iPhone and even Snow Leopard aren't really mind blowing (at least to me). Adding to this that they had some bad press about hardware issues with Nvidia and security on some hacker conferences.

Microsoft on the other side is working very hard to fix a lot of problems they had in the last few years. Vista is getting better receptions after people really using it, the Windows 7 beta was very successful with a lot of hype about it, the Xbox 360 is flying and even the worst products they have (IE and Windows Mobile) are getting really better with the newest versions. Not to mention Windows Live is now usable and very sleek. On top of that are some technologies people call "innovative" and "cool" like Photosynth.

And Microsoft may also benefit from PC hardware that gets better in quality and design. Manufacturers really have learned a lot from Apple in the last years (see Dell Adamo or Palm pre).

I think all this has an impact on how people see the brand. Not only 4 or 5 TV ads.

they spent, what? like 10 years on Vista, but don't worry windows 7 will be done in three and unquestionably better?

what, are they trying now, but didn't really care before?

yeah exactly, i'm running windows 7 right now, i am seriously not impressed. it's just what vista should have been at release, but microsoft couldn't have gone much longer without releasing something so i guess you could just consider vista a holdover and 7 the real product.

a few random things impress me, but nothing big. the only thing about it that impresses me is that it's so stable without being service pack 2.

oh wait. it is service pack 2. vista, vista SP1, and now windows 7. except you have to pay for it. the real problem is that microsoft went on the wrong track with longhorn and had to scrap the whole idea.

Just like Apple is trying very hard to get over the 10% marketshare in computers... Its taken how long? L>O>N>G!

You can't bring down the GIANT.

Now Microsoft will try with Windows 7. They listened to the customers and now the efforts are paying off.

Mac will have to be that much better iMO to remain at or above 8%

---

A decade ago Msft. market cap (roughly value of company in shares) was 600 billion, Apple about 15 billion, this morning Msft is 180 billion and Apple 113 billion.

Look at Msft shrink! And 113 to 180 doesn't exactly make Msft. a GIANT!, it's not even twice as big.

2008 revenues Msft 60 billion, Apple 32 billion

And Apple's gaining on revenues as well:
Last quarter Apr 09 Apple profit UP 15%, Msft DOWN 32%

Apple's cash reserves 29 billion, Msft 25 billion (Apple's got more cash!)
Msft cash down from about 60 billion a few years ago, Msft. burning cash to boost stock price and to fund operations otherwise the shrinkage will be even greater.

For years Apple has poked at Microsoft. For years Microsoft stayed quiet.

It was only a matter of time before they upset the GIANT...

Now Microsoft is fighting back... I am surprised it took them this long...

Apple will have to come out with new Ads as the current ones will not work with Windows 7.

I don't see any change in Windows 7 that would invalidade current Apple's ads. Windows continues to be crappy, sluggish, bloated, resource eater, viruses-spywares-adwares eco system, full of holes to exploit, full of inconsistensies and nonsense, full of crashes... and the list goes on and on... Windows 7 is just Vista on Diet and Vista is XP with lipsticks. The only thing that changes is the makeup and the market. The pig is always the same. The problem with makeup is that it just results when the girl is young. As windows gets old, the makeup just makes it appear like an old witch.

I could care less if someone buys a Mac or Windows. Actually I'd prefer that a majority buy a Windows machine--ensuring the virus writers continue to focus on Windows.

What I want to know is how Apple can go from a 0 in perceived value some time around the beginning of February to almost a 70 some time in the first week of March? Doesn't that seem suspicious? It makes absolutely no sense. Additionally, Apple wasn't running any ads during that time. How can they claim that it is Microsoft's ads that effected their perceived value, but Apple's success at the beginning of March has no such corollary? The results seem too random to be credible.

Could you at least try to be a good troll? Apple isn't directly competing with Microsoft. They are competing with the likes of HP, Dell, Acer, etc and they all happen to use Windows (not due to its superiority, but due to a lack of other options as Apple doesn't license its OS out). Given the limited number of computer models Apple produces, they do quite well compared to HP or anyone else. Individual mac computers are always at or near the top in total #'s sold on a model by model basis.

Apple could increase market share by producing more computer models (for example, a traditional desktop) but the more models they produce, the less time they can spend on each model and build quality and the overall level of system wide integration would diminish. Personally, I am quite happy to pay more for a better computer (there is more to a computer than processor speed, ram and hard drive size), and if their market share stays low because they focus on making a few good PC's instead of a bunch of crap ones, I'm fine with that.

"There's more to a computer than processor, speed, ram and hard drive size".
Right - It's called software, I've said it before; Apple is 1st. a Software Co. who happens to make the hardware to run them!
And their damn good at both.

A decade ago Msft. market cap (roughly value of company in shares) was 600 billion, Apple about 15 billion, this morning Msft is 180 billion and Apple 113 billion.

Look at Msft shrink! And 113 to 180 doesn't exactly make Msft. a GIANT!, it's not even twice as big.

2008 revenues Msft 60 billion, Apple 32 billion

And Apple's gaining on revenues as well:
Last quarter Apr 09 Apple profit UP 15%, Msft DOWN 32%

Apple's cash reserves 29 billion, Msft 25 billion (Apple's got more cash!)
Msft cash down from about 60 billion a few years ago, Msft. burning cash to boost stock price and to fund operations otherwise the shrinkage will be even greater.

"Can't bring down the Giant" want to say that again?

Your excellent points above will make little difference to the (fairly recent) bunch of trolls/whiners on AI forums that thrive on people who feel compelled to respond to being needled.

These guys (they know who they are, and we know who they are) are never going to stop.

Best to ingore their vacuity...... (but I suppose it's easier said than done. The sad part is, they know it).

Tim Cook is gay, believes in climate change, and cares deeply about racial equality. Deal with it (and please spare us if you can't).

they spent, what? like 10 years on Vista, but don't worry windows 7 will be done in three and unquestionably better?

what, are they trying now, but didn't really care before?

It doesn't have to be unquestionably better; it only has to be percieved as unquestionably better. There's a huge difference there

Vista picked up (and still is dragging) bad reputation during it's launch and never got rid of it - even when initial issues were ironed. "Mojave Experiment" showed most people just have prejudice against Vista and that will not disappear no matter how good Vista has or will become - as long as it is Vista.

Still, Vista is good basis for new OS. It is reliable and very stable at this point of time, and performance is OK on decent hardware. If MS can make it a bit leaner, improve GUI (as Vista wasn't really much different from XP user interface wise) and, most important, get rid of bad publicity Vista has - they'll have very hot item in their hands.

It could also be the the economy sucks right now and more people are looking for something dirt cheap and don't mind getting lesser quality if the price is right. MS hasn't said that Apple makes bad or poorly made computers, just that they are more expensive, in some cases.

Exactly. And from that point of view, I feel MS ads are less offensive than Apple ads.

MS doesn't even say chosen PC notebooks are better than Macs presented in ads; all they say is - it is easier to find exactly what you are looking for in PC world, and that will cost you less than closest Mac. That Mac might be better machine overall, but if customer doesn't require those extras, it doesn't make much sense.

It wouldn't be hard to follow Apples tactics and use same tricks. MS could easily make 30-seconds ad with compilation of Mac's bouncing ball, kernel panic, freezing 4850 iMacs, distorted screens - you name it - and put a simple single line title: "Macs don't crash - YEAH, RIGHT". Air that ad enough times and Average Joe will start perceiving that Macs are not any more reliable than PCs.

But I'm happy MS is not going that way. I don't think such approach was fair play from Apple's side, so I wouldn't find it fair play from MS either.

italiankid... nice to see you on here again. Maybe it was me that just missed recent posts from you. I thought maybe Microshit had fired you from posting here.

As for the ads... since the first Seinfeld ad I've only heard (in person) one person ever say they liked any of Microsofts ads. In fact even a friend of mine who works for Microsoft in Minneapolis said it's a joke around the office how bad they are. Any small fluctuation in number year over year are merely that, fluctuations and nothing more. Any one with half a brain knows how much bs is in those M$ ads. Plus, they're just badly done. Still amazes me to this day how all the money in the world can't buy them any sense of style or originality.

Where I work the jokes are more on Apple & how those ads are handing their behind to them.

Don't count on the general TV viewing audience to know when they are being had.

I see something a little different in this trend though. Apple turned up the heat on the whole computing industry, & now as a result many pc manufacturers are actually being forced to revamp their strategies. I think a lot of the change we are seeing is more because the competition is catching back up. The key will be can they keep up, especially with so much expected from WWDC & Snow Leopard due to probably make release before Windows 7.

Exactly. And from that point of view, I feel MS ads are less offensive than Apple ads.

MS doesn't even say chosen PC notebooks are better than Macs presented in ads; all they say is - it is easier to find exactly what you are looking for in PC world, and that will cost you less than closest Mac. That Mac might be better machine overall, but if customer doesn't require those extras, it doesn't make much sense.

It wouldn't be hard to follow Apples tactics and use same tricks. MS could easily make 30-seconds ad with compilation of Mac's bouncing ball, kernel panic, freezing 4850 iMacs, distorted screens - you name it - and put a simple single line title: "Macs don't crash - YEAH, RIGHT". Air that ad enough times and Average Joe will start perceiving that Macs are not any more reliable than PCs.

But I'm happy MS is not going that way. I don't think such approach was fair play from Apple's side, so I wouldn't find it fair play from MS either.

No, it's so much more respectable as a company to co-develop projects with people & then stab them in the back.

Apple's ads were poking fun at MS because Microsoft has earned it. They have stifled industry growth & turned the OS industry into a one solution market. Apple finally got some prowess & started hitting back in the most effective way they could, to poke fun at what has been frustrating so many about Windows for years.

Yes Macs do have issues, no OS is flawless. However, as someone who used PCs for many years & dabbled with Linux many times (out of frustration with Windows crashing) I have finally found my peace. My Macs run great, & not only that but in the 4 times I've moved from one Mac to another I have never had to reload from scratch!!!! Windows 7 is much improved over Vista, but it still carries many of the legacy designs that have long destined Windows to slowly corrupt overtime until a reload is inevitable.

Could you at least try to be a good troll? Apple isn't directly competing with Microsoft. They are competing with the likes of HP, Dell, Acer, etc and they all happen to use Windows (not due to its superiority, but due to a lack of other options as Apple doesn't license its OS out). Given the limited number of computer models Apple produces, they do quite well compared to HP or anyone else. Individual mac computers are always at or near the top in total #'s sold on a model by model basis.

Apple could increase market share by producing more computer models (for example, a traditional desktop) but the more models they produce, the less time they can spend on each model and build quality and the overall level of system wide integration would diminish. Personally, I am quite happy to pay more for a better computer (there is more to a computer than processor speed, ram and hard drive size), and if their market share stays low because they focus on making a few good PC's instead of a bunch of crap ones, I'm fine with that.

I could be a good troll.. But everyone on the Mac sites compare Apple to Microsoft. LOL

I once had a client who said, "if you say peanuts, you get monkeys." So in everything that I buy I try to be more discriminating that is "real value for money." In the long run you get more for what you paid for. Everyone has a budget even the rich people have a budget for everything. It's just that you need to set a standard for the things you want to own or have more so if you will use them for your personal use.

Interesting trends. Not a whole lot of value in the survey, but it is neat that both brands dropped to zero in February, and that both trend together until the campaign. It's stupid to say that the campaign doesn't have an affect on Apple, but the impact is not nearly as significant as many (including myself) thought it would be.

This has probably already been said, but all of you know that those surveys can be skewed in any direction the analyst wants them to go, right?

I mean, you all do realize that this analysis could very well have been paid for by M$oft or any of the companies they have deals with (Like dell), right?

I never trust or listen to surveys any more because they could have just interviewed 5K people in Seattle, or even just 5K people working at the microsoft campus, or even no one at all, and still said they did it and the result was in M$oft's favor.

Like Apple and PCs, people perceive Target to be more expensive then Walmart, but the same products are the same price in both stores. It worked against Target to have sleek adds that flaunt better quality stuff. Walmart just claims prices are falling.

One study that I'd like to see is a comparison between the average use of a PC with that of a Mac. My last two PCs average 4 years of use before ditching them. My first Mac was 7 years, but that was purchased in 1984 and we didn't have the Internet or much to tax it with.

While PCs over time slow down (usually within a year due to registry bloat and temporary files proliferation) my two year old Macbook still chuggs along just like the first day I bought it.

Advertising is an interesting phenomena. Advertising works...if done correctly. Advertising works, when your competitor is not advertising. Advertising works, when you take a specific position and your competitor does not.
In this situation, MS took the position of challenging the "cost" of a Mac vs the cost of a Win machine. Deceiving or not... MS took the position that their platform can't be beat by one purchasing a Mac. During this short campaign, Apple did not bite back. MS created the image and the "general" public and I do mean "general" accepted the story. An ad campaign does not always have to be clever... it just needs to have a good message and be able to be exposed a lot (good sized budget)
It is no different than when Apple was running, in a heavy way, "I'm a PC...Mac" campaign. Apple's share strengthened and the "general" public bought the message.

Apple needs to be creative at this point to come with a new campaign, that will battle the message that MS has been delivering without sounding to the general public, that they have been hurt by the MS message.

I am a Mac guy...and a marketing advertising guy. I am not surprised about this study, albeit after such a short time the MS campaign has run.

Where exactly is the bleeding occurring? You base this on a (most likely) skewed survey? Apple has posted some of it's best couple of quarters recently, and is one of the only companies in the computer industry actually making money right now. Just because Apple does not make the perfect product for YOU does not mean they are doing anything wrong. They obviously know what they're doing and what's best for them, otherwise they'd be going the way of GM. Now that's a company that can blame themselves for everything that's happening.

For years Apple has poked at Microsoft. For years Microsoft stayed quiet.

It was only a matter of time before they upset the GIANT...

Now Microsoft is fighting back... I am surprised it took them this long...

Apple will have to come out with new Ads as the current ones will not work with Windows 7.

The Truth and the Consequences

Micro$hit cannot prevent interlopers from corrupting the system and the computer hardware resources. Micro$hit can tell you after the fact you need to restore your system because it's been compromised but they can't stop it from happening in the first place. No other operating system does this. It's not a real operating system if you can't protect resources including the system code itself and Windows can't do that. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. Ordinary program files can't be protected. Rootkits are installed with the greatest of ease - and without relying on social engineering to escalate privileges. Malware abounds - over 100,000 strains in the wild. And so forth. This is the price to pay for putting a standalone single user system on the Internet without a thought to the safety of one's paying customers. Why won't Micro$hit improve things? Because they can't. Because they have so many millions of third party software titles they depend on. These titles would break under a new system. Operating system vendors need a thriving third party software market to survive - but it works the other way around too: if the third party software sector grows too big it can prevent the operating system vendor from making changes that need to be made. Micro$hit could ship Windows sandboxed in Linux; but then every Windows user would have access to Linux and third party software would just ignore Windows in the future. Micro$hit would lose their stranglehold on the personal computing market.
In a world of pervasive networking even an operating system designed for single user use needs multiuser capability because without that any network transaction that can trick a user into running malicious code that will subvert the entire system. Without strong multitasking the ability of an operating system to handle network traffic and run user programs at the same time will be impaired. As the designers of BeOS noticed, the requirements of pervasive networking cannot be met without implementing something very close to general purpose timesharing. Single user client operating systems cannot thrive in an Internetted world. Windows gets away with having severe deficiencies in these areas only by virtue of having developed a monopoly position before networking became really important and by having a user population that has been conditioned to accept a shocking frequency of crashes and security breaches as normal.

The value perception score looks random to me. How to explain the dip in February?
The graph shows a lot of fluctuation; it seems that the correlation is coincidental and only exists in the mind of the 'researcher'.

Soap powder advertising works too, brand x washes whiter. Much is down to what
is fresh in the memory, most recent. Repeating stuff works too, most important.

Agreed, looking at the graph especially the large spike Apple had in March it seems like these ratings are just what's on peoples minds. In March Apple had lots of hardware refreshes and the iPhone 3.0 event but they didn't really do anything concrete such as dropping prices, etc.

Microsoft has been advertising alot the last few months, and Apple not so much other than the new commercials recently.

I'd bet if we look in a few weeks we'll see a big spike for Apple in June, just by virtue of WWDC buzz. Even if no new hardware or price reductions are announced.